THE Celtic veteran says the players will never forget their glory night but warned they must shift their focus onto the SPL.

DANNY McGRAIN thought he would never witness a night like the one he had as part of the Celtic team that beat Real Madrid 2-0 at Parkhead 32 years ago.

Then Barcelona turned up in Glasgow’s East End last Wednesday and relegated his own personal playing highlight into second place.

But McGrain, who was recently promoted to first-team coach, is urging the players who beat Barca to lock away the feat in a memory box until another season in the Champions League is secured by winning the SPL title.

The former full-back knows it won’t be easy to shut out what Lennon’s players achieved in midweek.

But McGrain believes it’s vital the Hoops focus fully on a championship race that sees them trail Hibs by two points ahead of a hazardous trip to Aberdeen on Saturday lunchtime.

Appropriately, McGrain was talking as he promoted a Weatherseal SPL charity weekend that will benefit the Football Memories Project organised by Alzheimer Scotland next month.

He said: “The players should have the memory of last Wednesday for the rest of their lives. The Lisbon Lions are reminded constantly of what they did.

“And the boys who played the other night will be reminded of it constantly by Celtic supporters when they go to America or anywhere else.

“It would be very hard for that to slip from your memory. I’ve not experienced anything like that at Parkhead before. We beat Real 2-0 in 1980 which was magnificent but Real back then weren’t a team like Barcelona are these days.

“I remember playing directly against Laurie Cunningham. We then went over to Madrid and lost 3-0. So although I have one great memory there’s another side to that coin.”

Now Celtic have to concentrate on the here and now – and McGrain knows they haven’t coped too well with the domestic games that have followed big European nights.

He added: “This is a learning curve for the players and manager. It’s hard because we’re in four competitions.

“But would you rather be in the four of them or out of three?

“You do take your foot off the pedal due to the intensity of the Wednesday night. You can never replace that on a Sunday against St Johnstone.

“We want to win at Aberdeen on Saturday. We can’t wait for two months until we get a break from Europe.

Danny McGrain's most treasured memory is playing against Real Madrid in the European Cup quarter final

“Aberdeen have a good manager in Craig Brown. They’ve brought in players and are doing reasonably well.”

One of the players who has been doing better than “reasonable” is former Celt Niall McGinn who will be attempting to score for the eighth game in a row.

McGrain said: “I’ve not been surprised how well Niall has done because he has pace. Niall’s a brave little player, he just never fitted in here.

“He’s now at Aberdeen playing with a lot of confidence and if you’re a confident player it’s better than being half decent.”

Lennon will have to come up with a plan to counter McGinn but McGrain has no doubt he will do that because he is convinced Celtic have a special manager in their midst.

He said: “I worked beside Neil with the development team a couple of years ago and he’s a very intelligent person. He’s also very strict.

“I’ve seen just how intelligent he is through his team talks and planning.

“I’ve worked under Martin O’Neill and Gordon Strachan and I wouldn’t say Neil’s better or worse than them.

“It’s like asking what the difference is between Pele and Messi.

“They all have great attributes. Lenny has this awareness of things. He sees things happening and picks his teams so he can change them.

“If something happens then he can do this or that to react. I don’t know if Martin or Gordon did that because I was never in the dugout with them.

“There’s a great desire in Neil to win and he puts it through to the players.”

McGrain believes the sky’s the limit for Lennon’s side and wants to see them push ahead on two fronts.

He said: “They beat Barcelona – I can’t say any more than that. They beat the best team in the world but they have to do it in the league.

“We have to make sure we qualify for next year’s Champions League through winning the SPL.

“We have still to qualify for the last 16 this year. Qualification looked hard at the start of the campaign. Maybe the Europa League would have been good but now we have the chance to make the last 16. We have to go for that and the SPL.”